Raids to riches

What all can being a Pro Kabaddi League star give you? Fame and glamour aplenty, but for these players who have risen from Mumbai’s maidans, it’s access to a lifestyle that matters.

The zeroes on their ‘Player of the Match’ cheques are fewer than on those awarded to cricketers, their auction earnings way smaller than those of Indian Premier League heroes, but for a majority of players of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), the ongoing season marks yet another departure from the lower and middle-class life they never wish to return to.

While growing in viewership and stature with every season, the PKL has resulted in a windfall for the champions of the sport — all of whom, one can safely say, took it up only to seek gainful employment, prize money and decent apparel. At the auction prior to the fifth edition, Nitin Tomar, a raider from Uttar Pradesh bagged a record Rs 93 lakh, while his colleagues are taking home anywhere between Rs 5 to Rs 80 lakh in the league that now spans over three months.

What does this newfound wealth mean to our Mumbai boys who only considered kabaddi a pastime? We found out from three of the biggest names of the game.

Rishank Devadiga - Raider,
UP Yoddha

‘PARVATI PARLOUR’, the name flashes on the caller id app of one of Rishank’s team managers’ phones. It’s his mother, a single parent, who took up a beauty parlour job to sustain the family. She calls (on others’ numbers, as players’ devices are banned inside dressing rooms under anti-corruption laws) as a ritual after every PKL game that Rishank plays in, to check if he’s fine and all his ligaments are intact following a power-packed match.

Devadiga is not prone to injury though. Owing to the tough life he had prior to becoming a kabaddi star, he focuses hard on fitness and knows that a single injury or a dip in form could curtail his PKL career. “After dropping out (from Chetana college) in 12th standard, I took up a job with a five-star hotel. I liked playing kabaddi but in that one-and-a-half year, I had no time to play,” he rewinds, mentioning the grind of working seven days a week serving beverages and washing dishes.

It was after Pratap Shetty, the then Mumbai district kabaddi coach, spotted him in local events that he rose through the ranks and quit the job. “In my first tournament, I won Best Player and Rs 5,000, which was my month’s salary — 4,500 of which I gave away at home. I pushed myself to play more after that, to seek a bank or a government job,” adds the player who found a place in the Dena Bank team, followed by the Mumbai District, Maharashtra state and BPCL teams, the last recruitment being a turning point.

By the time Charu Sharma (read box) and PKL’s promoters came scouting for talent for the first season to a national camp for the 2014 Asian Games, Rishank Devadiga was not a name as big as Anup Kumar or Rakesh Kumar, both India players, but was among the promising talents. Devadiga was picked up by Ronnie Screwvala’s U Mumba and from there began his life’s headiest trip.

By season three, Devadiga was one of the most successful raiders of the game, earning fans, accolades and most importantly, contracts for a stable future. “I also won eight bikes as Man of the Match prizes… it was a good feeling as I dreamt of owning one while growing up,” he smiles. He has sold all of them and now rides his next-level dream, an RC 390. For his age, 23, one would imagine his next prized possession would be a swish four-wheeler, but it’s not on the cards. “We moved to a rented house after the first season, so first, we have to buy our own house,” he shares. That would certainly make ‘Parlour Parvati’, who runs her own parlour now, a proud parent.

Nilesh Shinde - Defender,
Dabang Delhi KC

TO FIGURE just how focused Nilesh Shinde, one of the oldest players in the league and one of India’s best defenders, can get while tackling an opponent, one needs to rewind to 2001, when he was 21. “I had grown up watching my uncle play kabaddi and always wanted to play it. My family hails from a middle-class background, and I knew I’d need a sports quota job to keep playing and earning, and gave it my all to apply for police jobs. It was frustrating to be rejected eight times on the police recruitment merit list,” he shares. But a decade and a half of persistence, practice and performances later, Shinde is one of the finest leaders and erudite readers of the game. Immigrants from Chiplun, Maharashtra, his family set up base i Dombivli, where Shinde played kabaddi on dusty grounds. “We had modest means, I mean, not having a proper kit or having a vada-pav for a meal was common, though we had support from my elder brother,” he reminisces. Despite his initial recruitment failures, Shinde single-mindedly built a career in kabaddi, which in Maharashtra was thriving even before PKL. “My first break was in the Mahindra team, and later in 2005, imagine the luck, I got a permanent job in BPCL the same day as I made it to the Police’s merit list. I trusted (then the BPCL coach) Pratap Shetty’s guidance and it proved to be a life-changing decision,” he recalls. “Had I chosen the police job, I’d still be staying in quarters.”

Prior to the Pro Kabaddi swansong, Shinde was already a known player in kabaddi circles, having been the Maharashtra skipper and for his occasional appearances in Team India, but the PKL truly reaped him the rewards that mattered. “An annual income of 30-40 lakhs matters so much, it’s the big difference in giving your family a good life and a great life,” he says. Pratap Shetty and Shinde, as Coach and Captain of the Bengal Warriors franchise grew to be two of the most respected names in the league, Shinde was picked up at the auction earlier this year by Dabang Delhi, for 35.5 lakhs.

Shinde is happy being called for prize distributions to ‘even Convent schools’ now as opposed to ‘only municipal schools’ earlier, but his biggest takeaway from the PKL life is what he’s giving his son. “We’re raising him the way we want, that’s most important to me,” he says.

Bajirao Hodage - Defender,
Dabang Delhi KC

THERE MAY have been a bit of ‘dangal’ in every lower-income home in the Bombay of yore, but for the Hodages, occupants of a 180-squarefoot home in Central Mumbai’s most prominent chawl, it was stereotypically true. “There were many of us there,” Bajirao smiles, referring to growing up with two brothers and a sister. As a child, he was fascinated by wrestling in the neighbourhood’s akhada. “Kushti abhi bhi meri favourite hai,” he admits.

Unlike the father of the Dangal girls, Bajirao’s father, a mill worker, got paralysed when he was seven, and his mother had to double up her tiffin business to keep the family afloat. “I remember doing my bit by writing CDs of songs and selling them for 20 rupees,” he recalls. The kushti passion was transferred to kabaddi at the Railway Grounds, where Bajirao got a whiff of a life with a sports-related job. He worked as an office boy, but loved playing kabaddi whenever he could. Unlike his senior Nilesh Shinde, he got recruited by the Maharashtra Police, and his talent was spotted while playing big teams such as BPCL and Air-India, whom he went on to play for later. “It was thanks to Nilesh that I went a level up,” he adds.

Hodage, 35 now, is one of the few names in PKL who has not participated in a single national camp and yet commands a big price tag at auctions for his prolific performances on the court alone. Starting from just Rs 80,000 in the first season, he has bagged sums of 2.5 lakhs, 5 lakhs, 20 lakhs and this year, 44.5 lakhs at subsequent Pro Kabaddi auctions. “It’s never enough to buy yourself a home in Mumbai, right?” he smiles. Hodage still stays in BDD Chawl, albeit more comfortably, and plans to invest in real estate in his hometown some day. “I gave away 20 lakhs to my brother for his design business… and realty in Kolhapur too isn’t cheap, so I need to toil more before I settle there!” he adds.

‘Cover your basics first’

With the PKL in its biggest ever season, its founder Charu Sharma cautions its players against being reckless with newly acquired wealth.

Charu pagal ho gaya hai, he’s peddling kabaddi players,’ they said while I was building the idea of a kabaddi league. I’m glad I did so, and the players, who were battling an impenetrable wall of prejudice of kabaddi being a ‘lesser’ sport played by poor people, have been its biggest benefactors.

From day one, we’ve been clear that more than any other entities in PKL, the players should be excellently remunerated because they’ve spent their lives playing a physically taxing sport, with no glamour whatsoever. I’m delighted at how the commercial wheels are moving – the league is full of stories of players now affording roofs over their heads. But I’d strongly counsel them about the trappings of money.

Most of the boys come from poor backgrounds, nice cars and fancy watches are obviously big temptations. I’d still tell them, ‘cover your basics first’. Use your money first to secure your future and that of your loved ones.

Despite this money, a majority of them will not give up on their stable public sector jobs. ‘Acchi naukri’ is an Indian psyche – I mean, does Dhoni really need a job with India Cements? Sehwag still has his job at ONGC! Kabaddi players too seek respect from their employment positions. As the league grows, we will continue to prod team owners to keep the players closely counselled.”

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